Would You Like a Banana?
Yasmeen Ismail
Walker Books

Take one hungry gorilla and one very tasty banana and what do you get? A smashing read aloud picture book from Yasmeen Ismail that is terrific for audience participation and very funny to boot. Or should that be, to chomp?

Said gorilla having announced its hunger flatly refuses to sample the offered banana deeming it ‘too yellow … too bendy … too wonky.’

Further enticing suggestions as to possible ways of serving and consuming the fruit meet with the same response, “No. I won’t eat a banana.”

no matter how mouth-wateringly tempting the confection is made to sound and appear…

Is that obstinate gorilla destined to remain rumbly tummed? That is the big question …

To find out you’ll need to get your own hands on a copy of the book and when you do, you’ll most certainly relish its brilliant throw away ending.

Having thrown up as a child when participating in a ‘who can swallow a banana whole’ competition with my sister, my sympathies lie with the naysaying primate protagonist of this scrumptious story.